Terra Infirma
by BandGeek58407
Summary: Not long after House's worsening condition makes him an indefinite patient at Mayfield, Wilson is admitted for debilitating night terrors. Question is, why are they seeing the exact same things? Gen with strong H/W friendship.
1. Chapter 1

"How are you feeling today?"

"That question is _just_ vague enough for me to deflect."

"Greg—may I call you Greg?"

"May I call you Annoying Brunette Therapist?"

"I'd prefer June," she sighed, smiling to herself in the most minute way as if she had actually found humor in the insult. Coming from anyone but Wilson, it was odd enough to grate on him—at least with Wilson he was kidding to some degree. No, this time he _meant_ it and was treated like a cute but wanton child. "So…back to my original question: how are you feeling today?"

Behind him, he caught wind of Amber scoffing in extreme disapproval. "Just lie to get her out of here. Do you really need someone else to tell you what's wrong with your head?" House focused all his energy at staring down to the stone floor, but Amber's voice pulled at his neck like a leash; in the pause, he knew Dr. Shahady was waiting for him to momentarily let his guard down, slip up, reveal things he hadn't ever meant to, and he hadn't planned on making this easy for anybody. Snapping at a hallucination would push his release date so far ahead that he would never get out in time.

"In time for what?" Amber pressed, leaning close to his face. "Hey. Scoot over. Or at least ask for another chair."

"Greg?" Shahady raised her eyebrows curiously, and he took the moment of brief eye contact to readjust his position on the couch, closer to one arm rest. Amber settled next to him, a smug grin all too apparent.

"Why'd you move?"

"What am I going to have to do to get you all to stop analyzing my every move? Self-induce a coma?"

"Before you really start to detox from the Vicodin, we need to assess these hallucinations of yours," she said. The patient file was open, pen clicked and at the ready over a blank steno pad. Blank—they didn't know anything yet, and he almost wanted to keep it that way, as much as he had felt otherwise before crossing the threshold into this place. "Don't you want to get better?"

His eyes flew to the ceiling before he could stop himself. "Oh _please_, I invented that patient manipulation card you just waved in my face. Don't delude yourself into thinking it's going to work."

"The 'manipulation' or the treatment?" she responded casually. "Because I have full faith in the treatment if you'll let us get to that point."

One full day in and already they were shooting him with ccs of empathy: no wonder his own patients found him to be such an ass if mild Shahady was irritating.

Stretching, Amber placed an arm around House's shoulder. "You would really want to get rid of me, a part of you?" She glanced briefly towards him. "That's cold, even by your standards."

_What's _really_ cold is that you show up and wreck havoc on my life when havoc really didn't need to be wrecked, and now you're threatening to ruin my life for good!_ He would have shouted it, screamed it until his voice grew hoarse and shallow but he couldn't let them see how bad this was. Not yet. So instead his fists, clenched, shook atop his knees.

And the shivering only worsened when Amber returned with a smirk.

"Chilly?" Shahady asked carefully, pointing to his hands.

Amber leaned forward, close to him again, much too close, her grip on the opposite shoulder tightening despite his knowing it's not there—because he knew it felt much too real. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he heard another low chuckle. "Agree with her," she hissed in his ear. "Lie. You know you don't want to be here. We had such a good thing going."

Sighing, House looked over to the psychiatrist. "Yeah, it's a little chilly," he muttered.

"Would you like your jacket?"

"…no."

"You're getting good at this," Amber said proudly, but in a way that made him cringe or want to or simply wish her away to when she was innocent, on the glowing bus, out of his head.

"You don't have to tell me the back story on who your hallucination is, if that's it," Shahady said softly. "When Dr. Wilson called before bringing you here, he rather adamantly insisted that he relay all this, plus the recent events with your colleague. So I already know."

House almost laughed. "Probably thought I was going to be difficult and withhold it all from you." Slowly, Amber's fingers loosened and the grip on his shoulder instantly became more content, so sure of her permanent place in jolting his sanity.

"He actually said that he didn't want you to have to relive any of it," she said, even going as far as to close the file, tuck the pen in her breast pocket, stare him straight in the eye. He had to fight to keep contact—Amber's touch certainly wasn't helping. "I can understand why."

"That doesn't make any sense," he retorted. "You're going to have to hear my 'perception' of things or whatever eventually. Wilson was making sure I wouldn't be able to lie." A deadpan, smack, there was the dose of his reality she needed. Too bad it was in short supply.

"I told you exactly what he said," she sighed. "And even if what you're saying were true, it only means he's doing all he can to get you well." Smiling again, she waited for him to respond—but there was another voice in his ear.

"Why would he want _you_ well?" Amber murmured with the intensity of a hurricane.

"Greg?" Shahady probed, a hint of questioning peering from behind her eyes. "I've known Dr. Wilson for a good while; I can tell he's very, very concerned about you."

"Why would he be _concerned _about you?" Amber hissed, burning his ears. "You know there's still a part of him that hates you for my death. And that same part is ecstatic that you're haunted by me…and slowly…losing…everything…"

By then the quaking had grown so noticeable that the explanation of chills was no longer viable: his fingers latched around his kneecaps and all four limbs were shaking. "Stop." First quietly, but then—"Stop!"

"Greg, who are you talking to?"

In a flurry of indefinite limbs, Amber jumped from her position on the sofa and in between House and Shahady. Malevolence danced in her now ever-present smirk, having descended from the smugness when she was manageable, even helpful. "Don't mind her," she spat, grabbing both of his shoulders and moving so close that their noses nearly grazed. "This place…you can feel it…dead end, no outlet, a—hey!" She pulled back, staring curiously at him trying to detach her grip but it only sank deeper until at last, satisfied with his struggle, she skipped backwards. "You can't touch the dead, House," she giggled, "but we will make your life hell."

Slowly she faded into the far corner of the room and, breathing heavily, he turned back to Shahady. "I understand your views on Wilson," he choked out laboriously, but she didn't answer right away. She was anxious _for_ him: it was seeping from her pores.

"Was that Amber you were speaking with?" she asked eventually. "A few moments ago?"

"I don't want to talk about it. See? Wilson's a smart one."

"What was she saying?"

"What part of 'I don't want to talk about it' don't you get? Do you need me to act it out? But as fair warning, I suck at charades."

"Dr. Wilson also said that you use this snarkiness as a way to hide," she said with enough force to jam shut the flow of the dispute. After a pause, she continued, "I wouldn't bother if this weren't important. What did she say?"

Of the few parts of his life that he was certain, his silence on Amber's actual words was a must. Shouldn't it have mattered more _that_ she was speaking rather than _what_? Quickly he ran down the list, just as a handle to the world—Amber was smirking from her corner—and came up short for anything impressive.

Keep quiet about Amber.

Don't piss off Wilson and Cuddy.

Don't worry Wilson and Cuddy.

Escape with medical license intact.

"Dr. Ambitious," Amber taunted, twirling a long strand of blonde hair between her fingers. His eyes snapped toward her, completely unaware that Shahady's were trailing after his, that she was cautiously moving from her chair around to where he was sitting, sensing—"Amazing," Amber continued. "World-renowned physician reduced to this…aims only to survive the loony bin…" Sighing, she strikes a pensive frown, smug to the core, facing him with a gaze that led back to the empty depths of his imagined soul. A flash of fear pulsed through his skin.

"Greg?" Shahady was almost touching his arm. "Can you hear me?"

"Your mother must be _so_ proud."

And all at once—

House leaped to his feet, stumbled on his bad leg, ignoring the cane, knocking it and almost Shahady to the ground, bursts of surprise or anger from both, shouting at him, at the fiction…

"You want to screw with me?" he yelled as he gradually hobbled to the corner. "You want to send me spiraling to my own hell? Look around, Cut-Throat Bitch: you've already done it! Lowest of the low, real cheap move getting inside my head, but why don't you take a hint and shut the hell up?"

"Afraid it doesn't work like that," she chuckled—and then she was gone, blip, without a trace, leaving him to swivel searchingly, eyes lowered to a glare.

"Coward," he muttered.

"Remember, she's not real!" Shahady called; a hint of desperation spilled over the edge while she watched his leg threaten to collapse. "Here…God, if you're not going to listen, at least take your cane." Picking it up, she secured it in his grip, but he still said nothing, just leering.

"Behind you."

As soon as the voice registered, he spun around violently, much too rashly for his leg, and pitched his cane like a spear where he had heard it. Despite the proximity, the psychiatrist's squeak of alarm was barely that of a mouse.

"There's your just desserts. Mmm, _delicious_!"

But he stopped short—because fallen on the cold floor, legs sprawled, hand clutching at a discolored, spreading bruise on her chest was not Amber. The shocked, hurt fury was too familiar. The soaked red eyes were far too recent. Where she had come was a mystery, but under the weight of the cane's impact, now laying to the side, was Cuddy.

"Oh God…" Just as he stepped forward, to do what he had little idea (but perhaps it was simply a gesture), Cuddy's lips twitched, pulled up along her cheek in the most infinitesimal flicker. The crying stopped abruptly, replaced by an uncharacteristically cruel laugh as her dark hair bleached itself before his eyes. "Dammit."

"Greg?" Shahady tried not to admit she was helpless.

Amber sprang to her feet with ease and sauntered close, again much too close, and he could almost feel her breath fogging against his skin. "Weak."

"I'm going to _kill_ you!" He lunged forward, hands outstretched in a frenzy, but without seeming to budge, she reappeared just beyond his reach.

"_I _can't die, House," she said softly, just to make him listen under his gasping and thumping heart. "I'm you. So wouldn't that make this a suicide?"

He blinked, and when the world returned she had been erased, her voice whispering in his ear, "I've caused enough trouble for a couple hours…" Reluctantly he faced Shahady, who still wore a slight but ebbing expression that bore the overwhelming flurry of thoughts like a public banner. But beyond her, just like before, Kutner stood staring, stoic; House waited for him to speak, but the hallucination remained silent, shook his head and moved on, passing straight through the wall.

"You were never the quiet one, Kutner. Don't just shake your head," he snapped.

"Kutner?"

He glanced at Dr. Shahady, bending to retrieve his cane, but curiously found that it was still in his hand. Had it ever left? "Yeah. Kutner."

"The file says that you have only been hallucinating Amber Volakis." She paused and they locked eyes. "How long have you been seeing Kutner?"

"The first time was yesterday," he muttered. There was no point in lying about it: a quarter of his goals had already been ripped asunder anyway.

"And the second was just now?" Hurriedly she moved to his patient file to make note of it, and how he hated it, being studied. _He_ was the studier, not the subject.

"Yes," he muttered, almost incoherently—and then his lunch was all over the floor. "Ugh…"

Shahady rushed to his side to catch his collapsing form in mid-fall. "Oh dear…the detox must finally be kicking in…let's get you to your room…don't worry about the mess; someone will get it…" Despite the stream of attempted comforts issuing from her mouth keeping him tied to reality, all he managed for a reply was an absent, pained moan.

They were met at the door by another psychiatrist, who, after catching one glimpse of Shahady's face, ran to House's other side. Gradually the threesome slogged down the hallway.

"Felix…" she murmured over House's groan. "I can't do this one alone."

XXX

That night was the first night House appeared in Wilson's dreams.

When he awoke the following morning, all the details ran together in a mush of vagueness, fuzzy along all the edges save for that one thing—him. Of nothing else in the dream was he surer. But there were other facets, too, those he couldn't relate in many more ways than a concept salad. There was House, gray walls, and—if his memory served him correctly—a javelin.

His eyes were glued to his bedroom ceiling.

He wished he could get the unnerving laughter to stop echoing in his ears.

**A/N: I'd love some reviews as inspiration to figure out later chapters. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

Sitting at his desk that same morning, Wilson was faced with the impossible task of concentration—in the looming silence, he found himself repositioning a patient-file label so many times that the adhesive had begun to wear, and suddenly that coffee on the corner of his desk seemed like a horrible, horrible idea. He knew there was no way House could dose him from Mayfield, but who wanted to risk it?

Not I, said the oncologist.

And he kept yawning, which he also couldn't understand. A full eight hours of sleep and he was still exhausted enough to yawn this uncontrollably?

It was hurting his head, focusing on all these ideas at once, so he narrowed it down to the label. He gave up fairly quickly as soon as his eyes strayed to the clock. Nine forty-eight. Normally House would have already been in to harass him, to at least acknowledge his existence, but his door remained closed and his morning unperturbed. He had all the time in the world to complete the menial tasks that got pushed to the wee hours when House was skulking around, and Wilson was starting to think that all this time was far too much because it seemed his brain had been wired for distraction from nine forty-five to ten every morning.

Sighing, he crumpled the uncooperative label between his fingers and tried to suppress his personal upbraiding of how pathetic that was, maybe not pathetic, per se, but definitely bizarre. And he didn't like it.

"I'll just stretch my legs," he said to the empty office. "Take a visit to the vending machine…or something." His gaze returned to the clock in hopes that his decision had somehow spent up the last twelve minutes so he could get on with the morning. Alas, no such luck: the space-time continuum kept on trucking, so he opted to take the cue and do the same.

That day, more so than a few days previously, Princeton-Plainsboro's hallways seemed wider, his own step more sluggish. That day, more so than ever, the fact that he was walking alone was too conspicuous for comfort. He walked alone all the time, making his own rounds, getting to his own appointments, but never with a palpable hole at his side. Another sigh escaped him.

And then before he could even make it five yards from his office door, he suddenly wasn't hungry anymore (not that he ever had been, really) and was just as suddenly quite lost for a course of action. He stood there a few seconds before shuffling into the diagnostics conference room and falling into the nearest chair.

They had been staring; at least now they had a reason.

"Good morning, sunshine," Thirteen sighed without a glance up from her file, voice arched both in sarcasm and inquiry. "Glad to see you're so chipper."

Foreman merely studied him over the tips of his fingers, his large eyes clearly more piercing than usual; Wilson could only keep eye contact for a few moments without it becoming brilliantly awkward.

"We haven't seen him today either," Taub said with a brief glance. "Don't know where he could be."

"We paged him," Thirteen piped in.

"And called his cell phone."

"And land line. No answer—wait," she called, but Wilson was already beyond the glass walls and nearly jogging down the hall, Foreman's eyes trailing after him the entire time. But he hardly had the mental capacity at the moment to worry over such insignificant matters. He needed the elevator to move its sorry ass a little bit faster.

"Idiot," he mumbled to himself, dashing to his left where he had almost forgotten a stairwell existed—not that he had ever made much use of it considering his normal company.

_This_, he thought, _is _beyond _ridiculous. _Despite nearly stampeding over a whole slew of nurses and clinic patients, Wilson's gaze remained cemented on a certain Dean of Medicine's office door. He couldn't quite think straight, save for the steady stream of "ridiculous" on loop, and _somewhere_ in said steady stream he knew when he at last arrives at her desk that any skilled oration will dissolve into incoherent stuttering and repetitive hand motions.

It had happened before.

And now, when he really wanted to make a point, he hoped it wouldn't happen again. Ever. But especially—

"Oof!"

Out of the crowd and without warning, a nose bumped into his chest and a rainbow of file folders, precariously gripped by manicured fingers, flew up past his eyes and all at once barreled on past him to the elevators as though nothing had occurred. "'Scuse me, Dr. Wilson."

He took a much-needed millisecond to collect his thoughts—"But-wh-hey!"—but there was a hole in his pocket. "Don't just ''scuse me, Dr. Wilson' me!" He jogged up beside Cuddy, where she was still staring at the lit-up floor numbers until she finally turned her head the slightest bit.

"What is it?" Clearly she was more than a little skeptical.

"You haven't told his team where he is!" he hissed.

"_You_ didn't, did you?" she asked as they both stepped onto the empty car.

"No, but I should have." They glanced at each other with identical almost-glares before he continued, "They've tried to reach him multiple times with—_strangely_—no success. At least you could have mentioned to them earlier he 'called in sick.' Remember the last time they couldn't get in touch with a colleague like this?"

Her grip around the folders tightened. "All right," she conceded, muttering. The door slid open as Wilson opened his mouth, and four other physicians packed in amidst their moves to get out.

He noted with a hint of dismay that he was following Cuddy back to the diagnostics department; could she be about to brief them now? Why hadn't he been informed about this? Maybe he was exaggerating his own role in the ordeal, but hadn't House confided in him first about the hallucinations, about the self-doubts?

"Listen—" Abruptly Cuddy had whirled back around, stopping just beyond the line of sight of diagnostics and it almost caused another crash. "I'm sorry that I did not handle this perfectly, but excuse me for not having a flawless plan of action a day and a half after he was admitted!"

Her glare waited to ebb, made him blink quickly in reeling and leaving him standing there dumbly as she entered the conference room. From then on, Wilson had even more respect for House than he already did, for it took some serious nerve to face that piercing death glare day after day and be able to function immediately afterwards. When he finally did shuffle in behind her, the stack of folders had found its way into a haphazard, askew pile on the table, the hapless target of the team's staring.

"What…?" Taub started, pointing cautiously to the Leaning Tower of Princeton.

"Resumés," she stated with a forced air of normalcy.

Almost instantly, four pairs of eyebrows flew skyward. "For what?" he asked again, and there was a pause. With every answer from Cuddy, it seemed, came a hidden sigh.

"I know you all don't want to think about it, but…we need to start trying to fill Kutner's position." Another pause, well-placed. "You don't have a case yet, so…go ahead and take a look at these."

Taub kept staring, eventually looking past Cuddy and on to Wilson, but the oncologist merely gave a minute shrug. Thirteen stared too, but narrowing her eyes at Cuddy as if to see through to any ulterior motives.

"Shouldn't this wait until House gets here?" Foreman said, arching an already raised eyebrow.

"He's off this week," she replied delicately, too delicately, because everyone noticed and everyone gave hints so she knew it. "You know House. Pick some out that he might be compatible with."

They watched as she turned on her heel and marched back out the door, as Wilson followed her with his coat flashing up angrily in his wake, as their argument broke loose, muted by the thick glass walls.

"Wilson doesn't get this worked up unless he's arguing with House," Thirteen noted quietly.

"Or about him." Foreman tried hard to suppress his sigh, fingers massaging his temple in a failed attempt to scrub away the seeds of growing suspicion.

XXX

Wilson sat alone at lunch later that day, replaying and replaying the last exchanges of that latest scuffle with Cuddy—

"_And you're letting them _hire_ for him? Just how long do you expect him to be gone?"_

"_Before I literally ran into you, I was on the phone with his doctor." Their volume now subsided, she continued in a lower tone but no less intensely, "His condition has deteriorated. Drastically. They're reconsidering the estimated date for his release as we speak."_

Drastically—what had she meant by "drastically"? For every syllable of the word, he dug a fork prong into his half-eaten lunch, casting absent side glances at the unoccupied seat facing him until it filled itself.

"Mind if I join you?" Foreman said, sliding in with his tray.

"Hey Foreman."

"Are you all right? Earlier you seemed a little—"

"Do you want my chips?" Wilson interrupted.

"What?"

"My chips." He held out the unopened bag of Lay's with a shrug. "I don't think I'll be able to finish them."

"Um, OK. Thanks."

Wilson placed the bag at the corner of Foreman's tray and ducked his head down so the only view he had was a scenic vista of sandwich and salad. They ate in silence for a while, Wilson fidgeting and his fingers strumming until he couldn't take it any longer—

"Listen," he said softly. "Cuddy doesn't want me to tell you, but—"

He was suddenly aware of someone standing beside their booth, someone in a skirt and in an increasingly frustrated mood, and he managed to stare mutely up at her oh-so-frustrated-yet-cheery grin.

"Cuddy," Foreman greeted stoically.

"Enjoying your lunch?" She gazed at each of them in turn, still grinning: Wilson continued to say absolutely nothing.

"Yeah," Foreman said after a too-long pause.

"Good!" Her eyes lingered over Wilson a moment longer; she pointed at the chips. "These yours, Foreman?"

He shook his head. "Wilson's."

Without another word, she slowly plucked the bag from the table and, raising her eyebrows in a suggestive, administrative fashion, went on her way. They stared after her for a good fifteen seconds until Foreman had to comment—"Weird."

"How did she do that?" Wilson murmured with a quick glance at Foreman. "How did she know that I was about to tell you?"

"Don't read into it too much."

"What?"

"You're overreacting. It's probably just a coincidence."

"Somehow…I doubt it." Sighing, he looked back to his lunch and lost his appetite: another wave was pounding through his stomach and it certainly wasn't hunger. Slowly his eyes decided to make a break for it, nearly pushing themselves out of their sockets.

"Wilson?"

"She bugged me!" he whispered; his hands started to feel the insides of his shirt collar, and what he was searching for Foreman could only guess. "You know, with those tiny microphones!"

"When would she have bugged you?" he asked carefully.

"Does it really matter _when_?" Reason seemed wasted on him at that point, and Foreman's head began to pound with a lethal combination of fatigue, stress, and confusion. "Foreman, I _really_ think she bugged me!"

"And I _really_ think you need to stop being so paranoid." He shot him a look that screamed "got it?" and rose with tray in hand. "If you're still worried in a couple minutes, call up House or something."

If he had turned back to look at Wilson one last time before leaving the cafeteria, he would have at last noticed the holes bored into his back by the oncologist's gaze; removed from the source, he would have been able to pick out the words "I wish I could" seared into his skin.

XXX

"Did you bug Wilson?"

Cuddy grinned briefly at the paperwork piled on her desk, letting it fade as Foreman fully entered her office. "Nope," she sighed. "He's just predictable." When he simply nodded to himself and didn't leave, she had to fight the urge to sigh once more, this time with all the turbulence jammed into the past week. "What did he actually tell you?"

"That…there was something you didn't want us to know." She didn't have to say a word to let him know he was right. "It's about House, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said quietly, making her way reluctantly to the other side of the desk and placing what she hoped was a forceful yet reassuring hand on his shoulder. "But it's nothing you have to worry about right now."

"So there _will _be a time when I have to worry."

"Hopefully not." He noticed the hitch in her voice and tried to wish it away. Luck was not on his side.

XXX

Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital—what a sickeningly cheerful name for such a sickeningly dismal place. If they had really wanted an appropriate name, they should have tried Novemberprison or Februaryhell, not Mayfield, not anything that implied outdoorsy, flowery optimism.

"Bitter, are we?"

Fields and meadows had no place in a realm ruled by padded walls and strait jackets, medication and therapy. Fields and meadows belonged to the free, not the dead and hallucinated. More and more, House wondered whether parts of him were falling under the former category. Dead.

Dead.

It was too familiar.

"Duh…I've been with you for weeks; of course it's familiar."

"Shut the hell up," he grumbled.

"You want the fields and meadows like all your doctor buddies?" Amber inched agonizingly close to him, a habit it seemed, and not one he was terribly fond of. "Fine." Out of nowhere—

Cameron and Chase and Foreman and Taub and Thirteen pass him by, shaking their heads—a dreary sky—thunder?—a large field, pockmarked by—laughter, behind him, not from any whom he saw—the end. The end of the flashes holds two monoliths, surrounded by their peers, weathered by the elements, and with a jolt he sees the names etched into the stones and remembers how he didn't see them. Until now. Now he sees them, and he turns toward the crowd, faceless suddenly, and their voices, meshed to one—"Where were you?"

The scene dissolved back to his hospital room; his hands were shaking again. The Vicodin, they told him. Detox. What explanation they hadn't offered, however, was fear.

**A/N: Review?**


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